Harmeet Desai creates history at Linz

Seventeen-year-old Harmeet Desai, of Gujarat clinched the Joola Austria Junior and Cadet Open title at Linz, Austria beating compatriot Soumyajit Ghosh in a hard-fought five-game match.

In the finals, world ranked 48 Harmeet beat top seed Soumyajit, ranked 32, 11-8, 11-1, 7-11, 11-8, 11-13 to become the first Indian to win the Junior Boys singles title in the Global Junior Circuit events of the International Table Tennis Federation.

On his way to the finals, Harmeet beat Poland's Lukasz Nadoski 4-0 (11-7, 12-10, 11-5, 12-10), Austria's Stefan Letgeb 4-3 (12-10, 10-12, 11-7, 11-4, 7-11, 11-13, 11-5) and Enio Angles of France 4-2 (3-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-6, 10-12, 11-9) to book his place in the semi-finals where he overcame the surprise player of the event.

He defeated 15th seed Do Phung Nam of Hungary 8-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-7, 11-6 in the semi finals.

Harmeet Desai, Soumyajeet Ghosh, Ganasekaran Sathiyan and Sourav Saha had won the bronze medal in the Asian Junior Championships held at Bangkok last year.

In the world Junior Championships, Soumyajeet won the bronze in the Mixed doubles event.

"The performance of these players, will certainly boost the confidence, as India is hosting the Asian Junior Championships in New Delhi in July 2011 and World Junior Championships in 2013 at New Delhi," TTFI secretary general, DR Choudhary, said in a release.

"They will also participate in the French Open scheduled to be held from 27th April to 1st May 2011 at Metz (France) and Spanish Open Sheduled to be held from 4-8th May 2011," he informed.